Farmers face tough time as markets flood with spurious seeds in Gadwal

Gadwal: With farmers making beeline to seed selling stores, the traders taking this as an advantage have stocked large quantities of spurious seeds to sell it to the gullible farmers who are unaware of traders' tactics.

Even though the police department along with officials from Agriculture have formed a team and regularly keeping a tab on the traders violating norms, it has become a tough task for them to weed out the fake seed sellers. However, to ensure that no farmer is fooled by the traders, the taskforce teams in Gadwal, Nagarkurnool, Mahbubnagar and Narayanpet districts are working actively and cracking a whip on the violators and seizing large quantities of spurious seeds from the traders.

For instance, in Gadwal district, the special task force sleuths have recovered more than 4 quintals of spurious cotton seeds from a house in Maldakal mandal. "We have formed two special teams to monitor the markets and to identify those selling spurious seeds. As part of the programme, our teams are regularly conducting surprise inspections and raids on those shops selling spurious or outdated stock. Recently, we raided the residence of one Kurva Venkatramulu of Nagardoddi village and seized more than 2 quintals of spurious cotton seed. We will not spare any one and will invoke Preventive Detention Act," said Laxmi Nayak, Superintendent of Police, Jogulamba-Gadwal district.

Cracking on more traders, the special task force officials have also seized another 2 quintals of spurious seeds from the residence of Narasimhulu of Seshampally village in Gadwal mandal.

In Wanaparthy district, SP Apoorva Rao, in Narayanpet SP Chetana and officials from Nagarkurnool district have also formed special teams to monitor traders selling spurious seeds. The farmers have also been continuously being given awareness programmes to identify the spurious seeds and urged not to buy seeds from unregistered traders.

"Most of the farmers are having good awareness, but still as the demand for seeds is increasing and due to lack of stocks at the registered traders, sometimes the farmers are forced to buy seeds from the black market. A few years ago, I bought 3 bags of maize from a trader and had to face loses as the trader duped me saying the maize was weed resistant and pest resistant. But later, I realised that I was duped and lost the crop and had to face a loss of Rs 60, 000," said Ramchander, of Shankarayapally village of Jadcherla mandal in Mahbubnagar district.

In view of the above, the district police officials have urged the farming community not to fall prey to spurious seed sellers and urged them to buy seeds only from registered traders.